The Black Castle.

Tuesday, 17 January 2017

With 2017 rocketing by at a breakneck pace already I have come up with a simple plan to keep the blog active until my schedule clears up a bit later in the year. Unfortunately the Mordheim painting challenge has been shelved due to real life affecting three of the four of us, so I need a replacement.

Each week I will be taking down an old White Dwarf magazine from the shelves and scanning a few select pages for inspiration and discussion. Who knows where it will lead?

We start with #131 (no reason, purely at random) and controversially skip straight past the article on Horus vs Emperor (we all know that fluff by now), leaving us with some lovely Eavy Metal pages, a fantasy townhouse modelling guide and two beautiful black and whites from Mighty Empires and Confrontation articles respectively.

Thursday, 27 October 2016

I have to bust this one out early as the rest of the month is jam-packed so it's now or never. I will go back to improve this one and pep the base up (will do that for all the minis at the same time I reckon so it looks cohesive).

Another model from Foundry's time warped wizards pack. This chap will be my warband leader and has the best kit (pistol, sword, helmet, armour and back-up mace).

All the models will be WYSIWYG and conform to the 500 crown limit, I'll so a halfway post with more details in January. I loved painting this one, wish I'd had more time this month to do a more complete job but I am running the Night of the Living Lead event at Foundry this weekend and my D&D campaigns have been demanding my painting time to the point where it wasn't possible.

I did a better job on the sample mini I was lucky enough to receive from macrocosm to celebrate their new Kickstarter, Dwarves at Arms. There are only three days to go so grab a look now if you haven't already. Dwarves at Arms (plus ogres and halflings too!)

I'll be using the dwarf, Lord Warmbread Saynsbury (it was supposed to be Warbeard but his Dad was too drunk to chisel properly when he registered the birth), as a cleric of Valaya and liason for the mercenary forces hoping to keep the forces of evil at bay in Saturday's game.

Friday, 30 September 2016

Another massive dip in hobby productivity after the big blow-out that is Bring Out Your Lead comes to a close as hobby mojo returns. In truth, I've actually done loads of cool gaming but I just haven't had the time to properly document any of it.

My favourite highlight was when I GM'd the entire Blood Bath at Orc's Drift campaign in a single day. I rejigged it to run with the Warhammer Skirmish rules from the appendices of the 6th ed rules book and cut the number of basic troops in half. The actual run time was only about three or four hours because I set up the first three games to run simultaneously in about three square feet of space each. It was a real success and we all had loads of fun, but if you don't believe me check out this post from one of my players.

The last thing I blogged about in the run-up to BOYL was the Tale of Four Oldhammerers painting challenge. I had already won some bragging rights by hitting the painting deadlines every time and scoring the most challenge points but that would count for nothing in the finale. I allied my Undead with James Taylor's Nurgle army and we fought the combined might of Steve's Slann and Chico's Hobgoblins. The game itself wasn't the best (although we had a few laughs along the way) but I always judge the success of a game by how much it is enjoyed by ALL participants. As is usually the way with games that lack a GM it turned into a one-sided affair quite quickly and James and I trounced the opposition thoroughly. It was a shame, because in our haste we never stopped to organise a GM or even a proper narrative. Steve and Chico will no doubt want to forget the game and the triumph seems hollow under those circumstances. Proof even Oldhammerers can forget their core values from time to time! At least I have a painted Undead army though!

The big game, just about to kick off.

Say what you like about the gameplay, the armies looked great. This is Chico's force on the far side of my stone circle terrain piece.

James' beautifully painted Nurgle army. I am sure Steve would say it was a privilege to have his army blasted to smithereens by the sorcerous powers of those gorgeously hand-painted magic banners.

I also ran a small 'pathetic aesthetic' themed game at BOYL 16, using the stone circle as the focus.

A group of deserters fleeing the calamity at Hel Fenn stumble across a midnight ritual to reawaken an ancient von Carstein vampire from it's tomb.

What next? I have to do a final round of whip-cracking and organising for the Night of the Living Lead 5 which is coming up in a month at the Foundry, but mainly I have been working on the new To4O-inspired painting challenge. Mordheim: City of the Lead involves James, Chico, Steve and I painting one Mordheim mini a month and playing out a (GM'd and story-based) game of Mordheim at BOYL 17 next July. We are taking a relaxed approach (no points or anything) and just concentrating on painting up some fun minis. I have decided to paint up the unreleased ex-Citadel wizards set Foundry cast up for us plus a couple of freebies dished out at BOYL.

Month One. I'm not using them as magic users, they are merely researcher types naively exploring the Mordheim ruins. This will just count as a man with a club in the game.

Month Two. Man with hammer. Many thanks to Curtis Fell of Ramshackle Games for handing out this guy, I have appeased the Gods for a time by painting a free mini as swiftly as possible. Curtis' kindnesses and selfless contributions to the Oldhammer Comuunity are too numerous to recount but do not go unnoticed.

I have a background narrative written for them, I will do a post about it one month once once I have suitable pun names planned out.

Saturday, 18 June 2016

I spurned a painting day earlier in the month due to lack of mojo and what a mistake that turned out to be. 'Real Life' subsequently gave us a fascinating insight into childhood diseases and my complacency has been punished at every turn! We are almost back to normal healthwise thankfully but the backlog of things to do is looking deeply intimidating to say the least, so I had to finish and publish this morning no matter what.

Six skeletons with spear and shield, one with standard bearer upgrade, 82 points.

Wednesday, 25 May 2016

We are truly in the end game now! Steve posted early this month to put the pressure on and I responded by getting this war machine painted soon after. Thank goodness I did because I never found the time to finish the three crew until now, it's been a hectic month! I added in the last reaper to reach my target and maintain my monthly average (still at 102 points).

Sunday, 1 May 2016

The end of April heralds the end of month eight in the painting challenge. Only two more months remain before the end of the project! Here are the tallies so far (some of the values are merely best estimates due to mediocre record keeping on behalf of others!). :p

Wednesday, 20 April 2016

You may think I'm mad for slaving away at a painting challenge while the sun is out, but these just needed a few finishing touches and publishing. So I'll make a quick hash job of it and dash out for my annual supply of vitamin D! Score update to follow at the end of the month.

Time to ramp up the pressure on the others!

5 skeleton warriors at 11 points each and a standard for the unit costing 21 points. It's only 76 points in total but my monthly average is still above 100 keeping me on course for a maximum score.

This hand weapon unit is done for this challenge, just a few spearmen and the skull thrower to go now ;)

Thursday, 31 March 2016

The end of March heralds the end of month seven in the painting challenge. Month seven! Only three more months remain before the end of the project. Here are the tallies so far (some of the values are estimates due to mediocre record keeping on behalf of others!). :p

After a thorough audit, James benefits from the recount most, regaining a point lost when I missed a post of his in January.

Wednesday, 30 March 2016

I've been spring cleaning the blog as it's that time of year. I stopped short of adding gamboling lambs but hopefully things look a bit fresher anyway.

I have tweaked the name from The Black Hole to The Black Castle to reflect my main focus (which is an oldhammer undead army currently). The main site name is still warlordpaul.blogspot.co.uk so hopefully if I have got my incantations, rituals and unguents right there should be no interruption with the subscriptions. Let me know if all is well please somebody, if I get too much silence I will get back under the bonnet. Cheers!

Thanks for stopping by, normal service will resume shortly with the oldhammer painting challenge results for March.

I am a born-again responsible gamer. My conquest of the Etherweb will be slow, but inevitable.

Mission Statement.

This Blog will be used to revolutionise wargaming, succeeding where others have failed. Oh yes it will! I will teach you all the error of your ways and subvert you to my cause. I am on a crusade to bring back the GamesMaster to all tabletop battles. On the way, I will track my wargaming progress project by project and as a whole, bringing projects to completion and moving on to new challenges. I have moved away from the hollow, charmless gaming that has become a kind of standard thanks to our own complacency and develop a gaming style that encompasses the gaming and role-play values of the 80s and early 90s (my youth) whilst going beyond what that era achieved into exhilarating new realms of fun. I will therefore use the Blog to record my battle and keep on the right course with my overall philosophy in the same way as I fortify my discipline with individual projects. I will use the blogging platform to challenge my painting, modelling and photography skills, though I will not allow the pursuit of high standards to interfere with the deadlines I set myself so expect a mixture of different quality paint jobs, photos et cetera. The aspiration to perfection is always a long term goal, so get stuff done in the mean time. The blog will come in handy for insurance purposes, tremble in fear claims negotiators. I promise not to use the Blog as a vacuous diary, sharing a life which though personally gratifying is possibly outwardly dull. Though I am pretty neat. I will utilise gentle humour often, as is my way, without descending into constant joke-telling. I will not shy away from subtle adult humour and occasional vulgarity (this will not include serious swear words however) though only rarely and in always in context. This is because I like my wargaming to have a moral awareness of it’s real life counterpart (war) in amongst all the fun times. I will not post whilst drunk. I will never review movies, books or anything else for that matter though I may recommend stuff for gaming inspiration purposes and talk about a fun time I had doing something that linked to my gaming activities. I will strive to avoid discussing the world in absolute terms, accepting rather that reality is in the eye of the beholder and that maturity acknowledges variety. I want the hobby to be inclusive and will avoid misogynistic blogger staples such as using pictures of ladies breasts to liven up mediocre posts. I will ask you now once, for the first and last time, to comment and follow if you feel able as these signs of recognition are greatly appreciated. I will never again seek any acclamation for what I’m doing. As a final point, I will make it clear that I thinkGamers, us, ourselves, are responsible for the state of wargaming, NOT Games Workshop, Wizards of the Coast et cetera who despite being in the grasp of vile corporate vampires actually carry out, diligently and with dignity, a worthy and thankless task. If anything goes downhill people are far too quick to blame the governing body, when they should be taking personal responsibility first and foremost. Wargamers of the world, the time for excuses is past, it is time to have incredible fun!